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Better for Verse
"Couple renews vows on the cheap," read the headline for the March 27, 2008, Dear Abby column of the Democrat & Chronicle. An entry reported: "We asked our new priest if he would give us a special blessing on our 45th. To our surprise, we were called up to the altar after Mass, and he renewed our vows in front of the entire congregation. Since then, the priest has done this for other couples. There is no cost involved. Afterward couples can have a reception in their homes." - Bob and Karen in East Moline, Ill.
Today, April 15, 2008, another article on page two of the same newspaper proclaimed: Study claims taxpayers pay for broken U.S. families. Paragraph one read: "Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year [emphasis mine], according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating government action to bolster marriages." Paragraph six concluded: "While the study doesn't offer formal recommendations, it does suggest that state and federal lawmakers consider investing more money in programs intended to bolster marriages."
As a crotchety, aging priest, I'm sticking my nose, newly liberated from years of sinus congestion, into the fray! Let's combine Dear Abby's on the cheap with the study's cry for strengthening marriage in our land. We don't need to throw money at the problem, but we do need to make time for something tender, beautiful, and, frankly, religious in the best sense of the word. Now, I can already hear the reaction of many a spouse, "What the h...! He wants me to do what?" It's not a question of wanting you to do anything. It's a practice and suggestion I heard about way back in 1971.
Richard and Patricia were parishioners in Northampton, MA. I think they heard of this practice during Marriage Encounter, or something akin to it. They said, "Each night we hold hands, renew our marriage vows and speak the words exchanging rings at our wedding. We do this every night we can, and we do it in front of the kids as we say our night prayers together with them." That verse from their wedding remains an anchor in their life with five children, and all the things life throws at them. But what made it stick in memory was the way they spoke about their practice. It was simple, mature, matter of fact, and it mirrored their faith in Jesus present in their marriage.
At the wedding ceremony, the priest, or deacon, addresses the couple: "Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church." Then they say to each other: "I take you...to be my wife/my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." Another form is given, one very familiar here in the United States: "I take you...for my lawful wife/my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." After the rings are blessed, they say to each other, "Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
If a return to basics and fundamentals is so sorely needed today, what could be simpler, yet charged with truth than this daily renewal of commitment? It would take a magician, an actor, to hide one's feelings as you look into each other's eyes day after day, decade after decade and sincerely speak these verses. Imagine children, in the setting of prayer, witnessing this daily as they are growing! Is not the stability of their parents' love for each other among the greatest gifts given them along with life and faith? Prayers may be taught, but mutual, parental love must be lived and shown faithfully.
Perhaps this very simple practice might become the cornerstone of the Domestic Church, called family. Then, coming to Mass, there is already a mutual profession of faith, a vowed life of stability lived out in the messy moments of home brought to the Eucharist to be offered as that over which Christ whispers the words: "This is my body. This is my blood." In Chapter 6 of Saint John's Gospel, after speaking of the Eucharist and seeing many leave Him because they found His words intolerable, Jesus asks Peter, "Will you also go away?" Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life." How about the words of a lasting marriage, inexpensive in dollars and cents, but richest in self commitment? Perhaps marriage in our parish and community might be a bit stronger, wiser, better for this wedding verse prayed daily before the Lord wondrously hidden in the depths of spouses' eyes? Each day: an anniversary on the cheap?
God bless you,
Fr. Mike
The "O" Antiphons
From December 17th to the 23rd the Magnificat has unique, richly biblical, poetic, and deeply spiritual antiphons. The antiphons are like the verses sung/recited repeatedly during the Responsorial Psalm at Mass. Prayed at Evening Prayer, the Magnificat is Mary’s Canticle that begins:
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant..."
The verses of the classic Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, are an adaptation of these so-called "O Antiphons." They are called "O Antiphons" simply because they begin with the exclamation: "O." While we might be tempted to take the "O" for granted, it is there to generate and give voice to the excitement of the universal Church and of each of us as the wonder of the Incarnation, Christmas, draws ever closer.
For example, here are the antiphons for December 18th and 23rd:
December 18th: O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.
December 23rd: O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.
In late fall of 1968, the liturgy director of the American College, Louvain, Belgium, asked me to write "brief" reflections on each of the "O Antiphons" and read them as the Advent wreath candles were lighted before our evening meal in the college dining hall. Alas, he emphasized the word brief! Since that's not one of my virtues, editing was crucial. My classmates snarled at me, making it perfectly clear that these were to be read just before we eat supper! So in the name of holy brevity, and in the face of young men's hunger, here's the "O Antiphon" as it appears in Vespers, or Evening Prayer, December 17th:
Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.
And here's the brief meditation written by the then still-very-green seminarian:
Reading for Today’s Advent: Tuesday, December 17, 1968:
O Wisdom...You come from the mouth of the One Most High.
You reach from the beginning to the end.
You order all things in tender disorder.
Wisdom...Come!
Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.
It is WIDE OPEN. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it:
we are off "one to his farm, another to his merchandise."
Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static.
"WISDOM," cries the dawn deacon, but we do not understand.
(Adapted from the "O Antiphon" of December 17th, and from a meditation by Thomas Merton, Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander, p.118)
How was I to squish together the thoughts and emotions arising from the sudden death of my father, the hospitalization of my mother back home in the States, the on-going terror of war in Viet Nam, the blood stains of assassinations from 1963 through 1968, the racial riots in Detroit, theology classes, preparations for the diaconate, being twenty-three - and stand before the Holy Wisdom of the One Most High who governs all things - briefly? Except by saying: You order all things in tender disorder. For like the back side of a magnificent tapestry, life looks like, feels like chaos!
After thirty-nine years, I'm not so sure much has changed. As ever, only faith and hope nourish God's promises and reveal Holy Wisdom. The prayer endures: "O God, our God, You alone open minds, hearts, and eyes to see your Holy Wisdom at play in our midst. O Holy Wisdom, You order creatively all things in tender disorder."
God bless you through the remaining days of Advent and grant you a holy Christmas.
Fr. Mike
For Example...
Have you ever heard your parent or teacher say in a loud, commanding voice: "Do as I say"? Then add with sheepish whisper, or perhaps with head turned and forced cough, "...and not as I do"? Ah, the crunch-point between espoused, or professed values, and the less-than-ideal lived values. A difference there is, however, between having high ideals and the never ending struggle of living up to them, and the well-worn mask of hypocrisy.
With school having opened but two months ago and the annual fall start-up of community and church activities, we have a culture-given opportunity to reflect on the power of example. So much attention is given to peer example and pressure in the formation of the values of young people, but serious study continues to point to the powerful impact and imprint of family upon the fresh clay of children, teens, and young adults too.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of my all-time Jewish heroes, wrote this about parenting: "The Heart of the Ten Commandments is to be found in the words: Revere thy father and thy mother. The problem I as a father face is why my child should revere me. Unless my child will sense in my personal existence acts and attitudes that evoke reverence - the ability to delay satisfactions, to overcome prejudices, to sense the holy, to strive for the noble - why should he/she revere me?" How quaint, how belonging to an age long-past these words sound to our McSociety and its quest for the immediate fix: supposedly liberating us from the boredom of the present and the constrained.
Rabbi Heschel's words leapt from memory as I read the Editorial and Speaking Out pages of the Democrat and Chronicle for Wednesday, September 5th, 2007. The editorial, Home and school, zeroed in on this enduring truism: "Parental involvement in the education of American children has never been more important. Study after study has shown that when parents are directly and regularly a part of their child's schooling, the student does better. Reading should be a staple of the home, and parents and children should engage books together, not as one overseeing the other.
"These prescriptions for improvements are often made for urban families, where the public schools tend to falter more. But the need for parental involvement holds true wherever public (and private) schools exist. A Newsweek-PTA study found that 40 percent of all parents believe that they don't devote enough time to their children's education. ... And these are energies that should increase as the children age, not fade as grade school leads into middle and high school years. Sure, the math is harder and the reading thornier. But it's that way for the kids too. Involved, caring parents should be an advocate for learning at those times. Especially. ... Education doesn�t have banker's hours."
Weighing in on parental example and involvement in that same issue of the newspaper, Miriam Zinter, guest essayist from Brighton, asked: Clean up language for children's ears. "Perhaps I'm more sensitive to swearing in public now that I have two children, ages 10 and 12. However, it seems to me that more and more people - regardless of race, age or gender - feel that it is perfectly acceptable to swear loudly, exuberantly and frequently in public places. Most people who do, do not care that my children are present. Some swear at children (theirs and others) who are younger than mine. There used to be a standard among adults to never swear in the presence of children. We understood that their innocence was fleeting and precious - and no one wanted to sully their sweetness by exposing them to vulgarity. Boy, have those days changed! ... I am appealing to all adults and teenagers to please show some decorum and restraint in front of children. I can turn off the radio and monitor the movies and TV programs they see - but I can't control what you say out in public near my children."
In Matthew 12: 34b-37, Jesus, speaking about the unifying and healing power of the Holy Spirit, sharpens the point: "The mouth speaks whatever fills the mind. A good man produces good from his store of goodness; an evil man produces evil from his evil store. I assure you on judgment day people will be held accountable for every unguarded word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
God bless you,
Fr. Mike
Soaring on a Wing and a Prayer
Distracting! They're down right distracting! Both angelic and magic - a la Henri Matisse and Harry Potter - they appear to pop out from nowhere to command our attention, to effortlessly enthrall us, to reveal and revel in their other-worldly majestic power. They stir up and bring to boil the green juices of envy in our gravity-bound bodies. They yank to a stop, more forcefully than any traffic officer, arresting our driving, walking, or train of thought with their gut-grabbing and God-given charisma.
Without trying, their commanding presence borders on the divine. Beholding them in flight is akin to a religious experience, a revelation inspiring awe. But...they are cantankerous critters demanding that we mere humans keep a very reverent distance or suffer attack and be torn by their talons! Benjamin Franklin found this mean streak sufficient reason to resist making these birds our national symbol, regarding the turkey, their distant cousin, better suited to the young nation's homespun zeal and abundance. But the eagle's high spirited independence and sheer power won out, for other founders saw it more an icon of the emerging union.
Fiercely independent and mighty they may be, the Perkinsville locals, and their relatives scattered around the valley and the nation, have come back from the brink of extinction by the midwifery of us mere mortals. While something like gratitude may be expressed by other species, especially canines (who can resist the slobbering kiss of the family's Spot?), eagles seem to rank low that virtue, but then I confess to knowing none up close and friendly.
Revered from a discrete distance, the eagle has held the fascination of peoples close and those far, far back in time. Our forebears in Faith were inspired by God and the work of the Holy's hands to see in the eagle a symbol of perennial youth and vigor. In Psalm 103, a psalm of David, we read: Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not his benefits. He pardons all your iniquities, he heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, he crowns you with kindness and compassion. He fills your lifetime with good; your youth is renewed like the eagle's. Because of its long life, as many as ten decades(?), and its ability to soar ever higher into the heavens above, this real bird, unlike the fabled phoenix of fiction, embodied the experiences of those ever renewed by their intimacy with God.
Listen to the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 40: 29-31: He gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound. Though young men faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall, they that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles' wings. They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. And that great image of humanity's vocation to freedom and responsibility, the Book of Exodus 19: 4-5, waxes eloquent when describing a people embraced by and faithful to God: [Tell] the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine.
Our local eagles chose us as neighbors, we did not choose them! The imagery attached to them by cultures new and ancient, especially that of the Bible, makes them a living reminder of how Christ providentially chose us and sealed that choice in Baptism. Each new "academic year" God renews us in faith and service, and has done so collectively for seven hundred seventy-five years and then some. We have cause for hope, for joy, for a youthful vigor and promise of eternal life each time the soaring eagle pops out of nowhere and distracts us from the humdrum trek of daily concerns and draws us out onto the breath of dawn to proclaim to the Lord: "My refuge, my rock in whom I trust!"
God bless you.
Fr. Mike
Critters and Conscience Formation
History, wondrous tales, and pious legends abound about St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast we celebrated October 4th, on which many a community blessed its work and pet animals. There’s the tale of the fearsome Wolf of Gubbio, that terrorized those townsfolk until the Lord’s Humble Troubadour came to town. Heeding Jesus’ command to preach the Gospel to all creatures, Francis calmed the wolf, chastised him for his vicious and voracious ways, and then called the wolf to conversion! (Perhaps St. Francis saw something of his wild youth in the Gubbio Wolf?) The saint then turned him over to the villagers as their “guardian watchdog”; they in turn fed and cared for the wolf many years thereafter. Saint Francis is said to have preached at length to birds too, but that’s another story....
Critters, saints, and biblical characters have long shared common ground and “mirrored” each other. The children celebrating the Sacrament of Penance for the first time, Saturday, October 29th at Saint Joseph Church, listened to the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son who “longed to fill his belly with the husks fed to the pigs he tended on a farm.” Wallowing in their mud, the pigs mirrored for the lad what had become of his squandered youth and wealth. The pigs’ hunger sparked the prodigal’s longing for at least a servant’s place at his Father’s Table. He went home carrying the sincere treasure of words: “Father, I have sinned.”
Some animals were the “mirrors” of conscience formation and examination for our own “little-ones-called-to-be-saints” on the day of their First Confession. Along with several other indirect forms of examination of conscience, seven well known critters were introduced in a way intended to provoke insight into moral choices. Maybe you’ll feel the “pinches of conscience” I did as I read them.
“The pig: Now the pig doesn’t mind being muddy. The pig is not very neat and clean. How often in the past week have you been inconsiderate and left your room a mess!? Or did you hurt your parent by not sharing in household chores? The Turtle: The turtle is very slow in reacting when something needs to be done. Have you, more than once, used the words: in a minute when asked to do something at home or school? Have you been too lazy to help share the duties of home, school, or team? The Lion: The lion sure does roar a lot, doesn’t he? Has there been the sound of roaring between you and your sisters or brothers this past week? Have you been fighting or calling others names?
“The Clam: The clam is a loner. This sea creature shuts itself away from family and friends. Have you clammed up and wouldn’t talk, or gone to your room and slammed (!) the door when asked to help care for a little brother or sister, or because you were angry, or didn’t like someone at school, or on your team? Did you talk back or pout? The Bear: The bear is known for stealing honey from beehives. Have you taken anything that didn’t belong to you? Were you cheating in school, or in sports, or in games? The Donkey: The donkey is stubborn all right! Do you ever play the part of the donkey by saying: “I will not do what I’m told?” Do you hold out for your own way when being more considerate would make for a happier family life?
“The Duck: Do you duck out of owning up to something you did and by letting someone else take the blame? Have you lied about it? Have you ducked your daily prayers in the morning and at night? Have you ducked away from Jesus calling you to speak with Him in prayer?”
Battling Sea Gulls also got into the meditation. Driving by Burger King in Geneseo last week, I saw two sea gulls battling with outstretched wings and gaping beaks. It looked like they were fighting over a left-over and discarded hamburg bun. One tried to cut and run, but the other stayed in hot pursuit. Finally, other gulls swooped in and, surrounding them, broke up the fight! Amazing what the larger flock can do, I thought! Before the other gulls came, however, I pictured myself as St. Francis and preaching to the battling birds! But their peers came to restore order. Besides, that would have been another story....
God bless you.
Fr. Mike
“Kappa Sigma Rules!” sort of, but only this week!
To the right, northbound on Route 390, between Dansville (Exit #5) and Mount Morris (Exit #6), there’s a mighty big boulder whose natural face has been masked and re-masked so many times I doubt anyone remembers its original face. Some SUNY Geneseo fraternity/sorority, Kappa Sigma something or other, ruled the graffiti-ridden rock during the summer and reclaimed it early in the current school year.
A week or two ago, another fraternity/sorority seized control of the rock and repainted it as their monument to temporal glory, read: Rules! But, alas!, sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the world’s glory), because on October 15th, the boulder bellowed in bold graffiti this week’s heartfelt and everlasting love between two or more very romantic spray-paint artists. For the moment, Love Rules!
Beneath the layers of the graffiti artists’ combat zone there endures the rugged surface of the boulder plunked there either by an ancient glacier, or our mechanical marvels while carving out Route 390. The boulder is itself only a chunk of this: the third rock from the sun. The boulder’s but a bit of the earth upon which we all live and move and have our being. Its fate is a symbol of what we so often do with the stewardship entrusted to us by God at the dawn of creation, i.e., we battle over it and mask it with our futile attempts to rule, rather than serve. Power appears sweeter and more true to our nature than obedient service.
A sense of service is what Dag Hammarskjöld brought to the powerful position of second Secretary General of the United Nations. Here is his “vision” of the rock upon and within which each generation lives out its vocation to stewardship. “Now you know. When the worries over your work loosen their grip, then this experience of light, warmth, and power. From without—a sustaining element, like air to the glider or water to the swimmer. An intellectual hesitation prevents me from “believing”—in this too. Prevents me from expressing and interpreting this reality in intellectual terms. Yet, through me there flashes this vision of a magnetic field in the soul, created in a timeless present by unknown multitudes, living in holy obedience, whose words and actions are a timeless prayer. —The Communion of Saints—and—within it—an eternal life.” We live and work upon the history created by all the men and women who lived before us.
Each year the Church recalls the true “rock, boulder” upon which our generation lives out its struggle between stewardship and power mongering. After the spooks, spiders, monsters from the deep, and comic book heroes have trick-or-treated, paraded and partied on All Hallows Eve, and their costumes put away for another season, we’ll celebrate All Saints Day. The saints, those who did ordinary things with extraordinary dedication and service, teach us “that to rule is to serve.” Their rule, their service is monumental in their silence and humble virtue. Their monument in the Presence of God is their loving and sustaining of our efforts to be and do the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whose rule from the cross and the empty grave we shall celebrate at the close of the Liturgical Year.
Oh, one of these days, I suppose someone is going to approach that boulder on 390, spray-paint in hand, and write in bold script: JESUS RULES! But, Kappa Sigs and young romantics will feel the burning desire to reassert their claim to rule, and Jesus will be just another layer in the on-going struggle. That’s the way it is on 390 and everywhere....
God bless you!
Fr. Mike
Holy Popularity, October!
Long, long before TV and the motion picture industry created mega stars and the tinsel and glitter of the so-called world class beautiful people, the Church celebrated its wholesome Litany of Saints. Hardly pursued by paparazzi and photographed in moments of glamour or embarrassment, these Friends of God attracted the attention of people of good will for whom Jesus, holiness, or their intercession was their soul’s chief interest. October is a cavalcade of some of the most popular saints in the Church’s Litany.
Beginning with October 1st, we honor Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, or simply, Theresa of Lisieux. Her autobiography, Story of A Soul, reveals her on-going mission: “I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I loved Him, to teach souls my little way.” These were her words spoken July 17, 1897, just a few months before her death, September 30, 1897. Is there a church in our community that doesn’t have a statue reminding parishioners of her “roses falling upon earth,” her enduring mission?
But the procession continues on October 2nd with the Feast of the Guardian Angels. Angels are appearing all over the place these days, in homes, on lawns, at the cemeteries, and yes, on the grounds of the Episcopal Church in Dansville. The classic image of these holy friends of ours is found near the Baptismal Font in Sacred Heart Church, Perkinsville, and their abiding presence in the History of Salvation is portrayed with strength and color as robust as this season in the stained glass windows of St. Mary, Dansville.
Come October 4th, we honor the universal friend of poverty, ecology, animals, world religions, and all of us in between: Saint Francis of Assisi. No trip to Italy would be complete without a pilgrimage to Assisi, which even an earthquake could not hold down for long; just ask Professor Cook of SUNY Geneseo.
October holds sacred another form of litany: The Rosary. The 7th marks Our Lady of the Rosary. Our Mother Mary’s prayer is the most popular devotion in Catholicism and beyond. And if prayer leads us into new depth of intimacy with the Lord, then October 15th celebrates one of the Church’s most honored and read Doctors and Mystics, Teresa of Jesus, or Teresa of Avila. No study of Catholic-Christian mysticism is complete without reference to her profound writings and her witty love of the Lord. The next day, the 16th, the Church honors the mystic who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The image she beheld is reproduced in so many churches, and the essence of this devotion has been re-enkindled in our own day by Saint Faustina and promoted by Pope John Paul II in the celebration of Divine Mercy observed on the Second Sunday of Easter.
Traditionally, the third Gospel is that of Saint Luke whose feast is celebrated October 18th. Luke’s gospel is central to both Marian theology and devotion, as well as the up-coming feast of Christmas. But literally much closer to home, just a few hours east on the New York State Thruway, is Ossernenon, near Albany. There the North American Martyrs Shrine honors the Jesuit saints: Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, Jean de Lalande and their companions. Their special day is October 19th.
At month’s end, witches, goblins, jack-o-lanterns bright, princesses, ballerinas in glittering sequins, Spiderman, Batman and Robin look- a-likes, Draculas and more cartoon and movie spooks may creep through our towns that cold October night, but none of them can hold a candle to the real men and women of the Church’s Litany of Saints celebrated in this autumn month. The popularity of holiness never fades with passing seasons, fads and fancy; nor does it shame, embarrass or fail us. The radiance of God’s-life-in-us, grace, continues to shine through the ordinary, the every day, the commonplace lived and done with extraordinary fidelity and love. Ah, the holy popularity of October’s saintly stars.
God bless you,
Fr. Mike
It’s That Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Perhaps you’ve heard this holiday song being sung - in the background of a TV commercial - as a very smiling mother pushes along, almost dances with a shopping cart through a store aisle. Lumbering behind her with very long faces are her children. For some reason their mother’s delight is not theirs. The season is not Christmas; it’s the get ready to go back to school season!
As an old college and seminary teacher of eleven such seasons, I shared something of the children’s feelings. There was always so much more to get ready before the school year began. The summer’s swift flight baffled me: where were those dreamed of weeks for reading and class planning? They, like most of our summer plans, were gobbled up by the daily tasks and duties of life with faculty and those treasured vacation days home with family.
In spite of that, back to school bells, books, and busyness had an aura of new beginnings, freshness, and that unconquerable virtue: hope. In the in-between-moments, there stirred the wonder of what the new academic year would bring. Late August or early September and back to school had more a sense of New Year for me than did January 1st in the cold grip of winter. The hint of trees changing color and the yo-yo of heat and crisp chill sparked more zest for life in me than holiday hoopla. The gathering of teachers, staff, administrators, new and returning students shouted more of new life than spring with its promise of the annual scattering for summer vacations and other work apart.
Yes, it’s that most wonderful time of the year for those of you who have children and adolescents of age for the many educational and social activities of Holy Family Catholic Community to register them for our Holy Family School and our Holy Family Faith Formation Program. As parents in a season of new beginnings, it’s time to recommit yourselves to sharing the adult opportunities which are linked with your child’s education in Faith. Foremost among them, as for us all, THE catechetical moment of the Church’s life: Mass. I always liked that old truism: The Family that prays together stays together. Where better than at the Eucharist together as a Family of Families?
And for those of the parish family, whose children have grown and who like me have seen many a back-to-school-season turn into winter there are new opportunities for continuing education in Faith formation and parish ministries and services. You, too, are invited to sign up to serve.
Yes, it’s that most wonderful time of the year for new beginnings and an abundance of new opportunities to serve God and neighbor. Check your parish bulletin for signs of healthy new life!
God bless you this season and always.
Fr. Mike
On The Road
Those with more than a few decades behind them may remember the On the Road movies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. They took us to exotic places: Singapore, Zanzibar, Morocco, and Utopia. The two entertainment giants brought us song and laughter, needed distraction in the 1940s when the world was at war for the second time. The films were a light-hearted expression of the lure of adventure and travel deeply rooted in the human spirit.
This deep-seated yearning for adventure and travel found high literary expression in Homer’s The Odyssey well over two thousand years ago. With the invention of the motion picture our imaginations were ignited by the sights, the sounds and the actors, whose lives often seem larger than our commonplace lives. Drawing us away from our “humdrum lives”and setting us on the road was another motion picture of the Crosby-Hope era, The Wizard of Oz. Somewhere over the rainbow . . . our lives could really take flight with Judy Garland and Toto as they were plunked down in a wondrous land filled with fanciful, good and evil characters. The Lost Horizon would soon follow those ruby slippers, and then we would venture Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
As the decades rolled along, so did we with the Beatles, On the Road; with the stars of TV’s Route 66; and then with the free-wheeling motorcycle life of Easy Rider. Both on TV and in the theaters we went “where no man has ever gone before” with the heroes of Star Trek. Getting to the moon isn’t enough for the human spirit, we long to explore the stars! But back on earth, we plumbed the twists, turns and passions of the adventurous spirit in Thelma and Louise, and in the Latin American and very adult award winning film, Y Tu Mama, Tambien. Soon we’ll be back in the 1950s with Jack Kerouac, On the Road, as his book becomes a motion picture.
Someone there is that draws the human spirit away from the familiar and the sedentary onto the road. Biblically, even before Adam and ̕Hawa (Eve) longed for and chomped on the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and were cast from Eden, the human spirit has been on the road. Noah in the ark floated over the waters of the Deluge. Abram (Abraham) heard the Lord say to him: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” Joseph, the Dreamer, was sold into slavery in Egypt, only to become the savior of his father and his people in the time of great famine: “Thus Jacob and all his descendants migrated to Egypt” (Genesis 46).
The Holy, moved by the cries of Israel enslaved in Egypt, called out to Moses: “Come now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt”(Exodus 3). Chapter 16 of 1 Samuel recounts the Lord’s taking David away from his family and the flocks he tended: “‘There–anoint him (David), for this is he!’ Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.” Israel was forced onto the road to Babylon: “To Babylon they shall be brought, and there they shall remain, until the day I look for them, says the Lord; then I will bring them back and restore them to this place” (Jeremiah 27).
In the fullness of time, “Jesus said to Simon: ‘Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching men.’ With that they brought their boats to land, left everything, and became his followers” (Luke 5). Jesus lures us onto the road of discipleship, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; I will raise him on the last day”(John 6:44). In John 14 we read: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. ...I am indeed going to prepare a place for you, and then I shall come back to take you with me, that where I am you also may be. You know the way that leads where I go.” “Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him: “I am the way (also road in Greek), and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” It would be on the road to Emmaus that the disciples would meet and walk with the risen Lord (Luke 24). On the road to Damascus Saul would be overwhelmed by the risen Christ, converted, and sent on mission (Acts 9).
The early Church was known as The Way. Vatican II in Chapter VII of The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, calls the People of God: The Pilgrim Church. So we are, for God has planted something deep-seated within us that is restless and is always drawn to the open road of tomorrow. The risen Christ stirs that yearning within the hearts of all who truly listen to him. As Catholic Christians, we are on the Way and our hearts do not rest until they rest in God alone (St. Augustine).
God bless you.
Fr. Mike
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Also from Father Twardzik...
Route of Evanescence
A collection of journal entries from Father Mike's spiritual diary.
Father Twardzik serves the Catholic community of western New York at Holy Family Catholic Community and writes from Dansville, New York.
A little about Father Mike
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